


Portage

by tree



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Episode: s06e21 Help Me, F/M, post-episode, what i wished had happened after the fade to black
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-25
Updated: 2013-01-25
Packaged: 2017-11-26 20:21:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/654056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tree/pseuds/tree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After all this time, she is still his most enduring puzzle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Portage

**Author's Note:**

> (set immediately after the end of 'Help Me')

>                               and the sleepless  
>  night travels along through the day as it  
>  once did over and over for this was the way  
>  almost home almost certain that it was  
>  there almost believing that it could be  
>  everything in spite of everything
> 
> W.S. Merwin

 

He wanted to go on kissing her, but he was too unsteady. Cuddy held his waist as he braced himself against the wall behind her.

“Take your shirt off so I can re-bandage your shoulder,” she said.

“What, there’s no hot monkey sex now?”

She looked him up and down with a raised eyebrow. “I sincerely doubt you’re capable of hot monkey sex right now.”

He made a show of looking around on the floor. “Maybe I’d better take those pills after all.”

“Don’t get cocky.”

“But you just said no hot monkey sex.”

She pointed at the lid of the toilet. “House, just sit down and let me re-bandage your shoulder.”

He sat. 

Cuddy helped him strip off his jacket and t-shirt, then went to work on him with her cool, precise hands. Her solemn face filled his field of vision, exhausted but beautiful. This close he could see the tiny lines around her eyes and mouth, the delicate veins across her eyelids. She brought an ache to his throat.

“You need to get cleaned up,” she told him as she stepped away. Debris crunched under her feet. “But we need to clean this up first.”

House picked the bigger pieces of glass out of the sink and rinsed the rest down the drain while Cuddy swept the floor. Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. As if in a trance, he filled the sink with hot water and lathered a wash cloth with soap. He washed his face, his arms, as much of his chest as he could manage. From behind him Cuddy took the cloth out of his hand and began to slide it over his back and shoulders. At her touch the world came into sharp relief and he felt again the pain of his shoulder and the sting of dozens of shallower cuts.

Cuddy reached past him to rinse the cloth in the sink. “Turn around.” 

When he was facing her she smoothed the cloth over his left arm and shoulder, being careful to keep the dressing dry. It was surreal to be standing so close to her, to have her touching him like this, in complete silence. Always they argued, bickered, sparred. Always there was that verbal barrier between them, that safety. Now he was completely exposed and the need, the longing, he had thought would consume him eased a little.

With his good arm, he smoothed the hair at her temple. An excuse to touch her. She looked up at him and pressed a kiss against the side of his hand. He couldn’t look away. It was as if she drew the light to her, as if she were somehow more vivid than anything else in the room.

“We should wash your hair, too,” she said. “Can you manage on the floor again?”

He eased himself down against the tub and Cuddy filled a plastic bowl with warm water. She knelt beside him. “Tilt your head back.”

“How am I supposed to look down your top this way?”

“You won’t be able to look down my top with shampoo in your eyes, either.”

He grunted and closed his eyes as she wet his hair. Strong fingers massaged his scalp and warmth seeped into him where she leaned against him. Despite the cold tiles and the awkward angle of his neck, House could have fallen asleep right there. Like a lullaby, Cuddy murmured soft commands for him to turn his head left or right, to lean forward or back, as she rinsed away the shampoo. Her voice was low and husky with late-night exhaustion. It raised pleasurable goosebumps on his skin.

When she’d judged him to be sufficiently clean, she gently dried his hair with a towel. “You can open your eyes now.”

The bathroom light seemed painfully bright as he squinted into it. His side felt cold after Cuddy turned away to hang the towel, and he rubbed at his arm.

“Have you taken anything for the pain?” she asked.

“Not yet. I will.”

She nodded and then helped him stand. When she would have pulled away, he held on to her hand. She watched him in that patient, calm way she’d been looking at him since she’d walked into his bathroom, and the look undid him. “Thank you,” he said. It came out hoarse and faltering, as though the words had grown rusty from disuse.

Her hand squeezed his and she smiled. “You’re welcome.”

It was such an ordinary exchange, almost routine, and yet it affected him profoundly. How often had he thanked her for everything she had done for him? For all the manoeuvres and excuses; the way she stood up to him and for him; for giving him so many chances. He knew that no matter how long he lived, he could never, ever repay this debt. And just as surely he knew she didn’t need him to. What she gave was freely given, and that was as much a mystery to him as anything had ever been. After all this time, she was still his most enduring puzzle.

He looked down at their joined hands and then back up at her face. “Stay with me tonight. Please.”

“We’re not having sex tonight, House.”

“To sleep! Is sex all you ever think about, woman?”

She shook her head at him and pulled her hand away. “I need to take a shower, change clothes.”

“You can shower here. I can find something for you to change into.” He was afraid he sounded desperate, needy, but he couldn’t hide it from her. Everything he felt was churning too close to the surface.

She touched his cheek and he leaned into her hand, closing his eyes. If she was going to reject him he needed some small measure of protection. Instead, he felt her move into him and wrap her arms around his waist, press her face against his chest. “Okay,” she said.

For a moment he was stunned that it had been so simple. That he had asked and she had agreed. No cajoling. No games. He opened his eyes and tilted her face up to his, kissed her softly. “Okay.”

 

 

The shower was running and House was digging through his clothes trying to find something unobjectionable enough for Cuddy to wear. Naked would, of course, have been his preferred choice but he knew she wouldn’t go for it. Besides, he’d seen her naked before. He’d never seen her in his clothes.

He was contemplating his _The Wolfman Ate My Homework!_ t-shirt when it occurred to him. Sticking his head around the bathroom door, he cleared his throat. “Uh, where’s Rachel?”

Cuddy’s wet faced poked out from the shower curtain and blinked at him in surprise.

“What? I don’t want to be responsible for child endangerment if you’ve left her in the car or at home with the oven on.”

“She’s staying at my sister’s tonight.”

Siblings, he thought. So unexpectedly useful. “Maybe I should send your sister a thank you card.”

Cuddy rolled her eyes and went back to her shower.

In the end he chose a pair of plain cotton boxers and a black t-shirt. It was almost like a little black dress if he squinted. House changed into pyjama pants and sat on the end of the bed. He felt suddenly adrift, as if without Cuddy’s presence the world had become less defined, more amorphous tonight. As if his compass spun wildly until it found her, like true north. It was unsettling.

When she came out of the bathroom in his clothes, with her hair piled on top of her head, she looked almost shy. “Bathroom’s yours,” she said.

He stood up, feeling awkward. “Do you want anything? Water?”

“No, I’m fine. Just tired.” As if to prove it, she yawned hugely.

“Yeah, me too. Go ahead,” he said, gesturing to the bed. “I’ll be a couple of minutes.”

In the bathroom he took a piss, then downed some ibuprofen and brushed his teeth. Cuddy’s discarded pink scrubs sat in a heap in the corner, a strip of black just peeking out of the pile. It looked so normal, so coupled — her clothes in his bathroom while she lay in his bed -- but the fact of it was so astonishing he could barely believe it. Yet when he opened the door to the bedroom, there she was, curled up on her side. Her back was to him, so he took a few seconds just to look at her, at the space she took up, how she seemed to fill the room. Something in his chest constricted.

He took a deep breath, switched off the bathroom light, and made his way to the bed. 

 

 

They were lying close, but not quite touching, facing each other in the middle of the bed. Cuddy’s hair spread out across the pillow and spilled into the hollow of her throat where the t-shirt gaped. In the light from the bedside lamp, the effect was a seductive chiaroscuro. House wanted to lick her, right there.

Instead, he reached for her hand and stroked the pads of his fingers along the path from her wrist to each fingertip, one at a time. When he had finished, she turned her hand over and he repeated the touch across her palm.

“I’m sorry I lied to you tonight,” she said, very softly.

He looked up, into her eyes, and saw her watching him. He heard her say, again, _I don’t love you_. The look on her face. The panic that had gripped him, then the anger. How much it had hurt and how savagely he’d wanted to hurt her in return. 

With a sigh, he stroked the hair around her ear. “You wish you didn’t love me.”

There were tears in her eyes. “Would you want to?”

“No,” he admitted. “I’m selfish and I’m a bastard. What I said about you being a pathetic narcissist, that’s not you. It’s me. Sometimes I hurt you just because I can. I’m going to try not to do that anymore. I can’t promise that I won’t, but I’m going to try.”

Her mouth made the funny little shape that meant she was trying not to cry, and she nodded. He nodded back and kissed her, just a soft, gentle touch of lips. The promise he couldn’t make. When he pulled away, her mouth followed his. This close he could smell her, the scent that was her unique chemistry, her skin and glands. Knowing the biology of it didn’t make it any less arousing to have that smell in his bed, on his clothes and hands.

Her mouth was gorgeous and he let himself just kiss her for a while, revelling in the feel of her, of knowing it was real this time. The slight hesitations she made, the little hitching breaths, were somehow sexier than the raw carnality of the night he’d imagined. They barely touched except with their mouths but he was already half hard. It was almost unbearably erotic. 

Despite what she’d said about not having sex, he knew he could convince her if he tried. But there was no way he was going to maintain an erection with the fatigue and the pain. Still, there was something he could do for her, wanted to do for her. It was a crappy excuse for an apology for everything he’d done, but it was a start. If she’d let him.

Inching closer to her, he began to touch her: her face, her arm, her thigh. She was soft everywhere, the fine grain of her skin almost fluid under his hands. He tried not to think about Lucas touching her – he’d been trying not to think about it for almost a year – or about how he might compare. All that mattered was now, was this. Her.

He mapped the span between her hip and her ribs through the soft cotton of his t-shirt, then let his hand wander underneath it, trailing over her stomach. Cuddy made a noise in her throat and pushed at his hand. “House, I don’t—“

“I know,” he said. “I know. I’m not trying to – I just want –“ he shook his head in frustration “—just let me do this for you. Please.”

There was doubt on her face, a heartbreaking uncertainty.

“Lisa,” he said, stretching her name, drawing out the sibilant ’s’. “Let me make you come.”

She shivered and caught her breath, then slowly let go of his hand.

Watching her intently, he slid his palm up to cup the undercurve of her breast and used his thumb to slowly circle her nipple. Her eyes fluttered shut, the lashes long and dark even without makeup. He bent his head to her other breast and began gently scraping his teeth across it through her t-shirt. As her nipple rose up under his mouth, he nipped at it and finally took it between his teeth, increasing the pressure until she gasped. The sound went straight to his groin.

He rolled her back against the mattress, half pining her under him, and rucked the t-shirt up over her breasts. They were every bit as spectacular as he’d hallucinated. Leaning down, he began placing soft, wet kisses across her sternum and both breasts, staying well away from the nipples. Cuddy’s breathing became erratic and her thighs moved against his restlessly.

“You are such a tease,” she muttered.

He flicked his tongue against one nipple and she bucked up underneath him, trapping his dick in a sweet vise against her hip. “I’m not a tease,” he said. “A tease promises but doesn’t delivers. I’m just warming up.”

He began a rhythm of steady flicks with his tongue against one nipple, using his hand on her other breast. After a few seconds she was gripping the sheets and making soft little moans.

“I love how sensitive your breasts are,” he told her as he switched hand and mouth. She cried out and clutched at his good arm as he began to suck. He kept going, alternating between breasts, nipping, sucking, flicking, using his lips and tongue and teeth, even his scratchy stubble. Her hands gripped his arms, his back, his hair as she shifted underneath him. Then she was pulling him back up her body to her mouth, where he went willingly. She kissed him hungrily, gripping his head with both hands to hold him in place. The sparse hair on his chest rubbed against her nipples and she broke away, panting.

“God, House, I can’t—“

For a second he thought about drawing it out further, making her beg for it, but that wasn’t what this was about. This was for her, not him, and he was already desperate to touch more of her.

He kissed her again to distract her and slid one hand down underneath the waistband of his boxers and through the thick hair covering her mons. She was so wet, he groaned against her mouth. His hips had taken up a rhythm of their own, and he would’ve been embarrassed that he was basically dry humping her if it hadn’t been so damn hot.

He circled the entrance to her vagina slowly, with steady pressure, until he found a spot that made her breath catch. Then he slid one finger in and out, keeping that same steady pressure. Her hips undulated under his hand and her skin was covered in a thin sheen of sweat. They were both panting, no longer kissing, faces pressed together in a kind of mutual desperation.

Finally he began circling her clit with the same rhythm as his finger. Bending his head to her ear, he began to tell her in explicit detail some of the things he wanted to do with her. How he wanted to go down on her in her office, at her desk, in front of those glass doors where she’d have to just sit there and let him lick her until she came. How he wanted to fuck her on his bike, in one of her tight little executive suits, just before a meeting, so she would smell him on her for the rest of the day and feel him every time she crossed her legs. Cuddy was making the most incredible little animal noises and he was so turned on he was about to come in his pants like a teenager. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep going before he lost it.

And then it happened. For a moment she froze, hips arched and her head thrown back, then he felt her cunt spasming around his fingers as she came, keening. He stayed with her as the spasms eased, keeping a firm, steady pressure on her clit, and in a few seconds her back arched as she came again in fast, hard contractions.

He was going to try for a third but she pushed his hand away and opened her eyes. “Oh my god,” she panted.

House grinned and stuck his fingers in his mouth, sucking off her taste as she watched. Then he kissed her again. “Be right back.”

It had been a long time since he’d had to rush out of a room to jerk off. He stumbled into the bathroom and shoved his pants down, came fast and hard in his hand after only a few strokes. For a moment he just stood there, catching his breath. When his head had cleared, he took in the pants around his ankles and the semen all over his hand and laughed softly at himself. He felt good and it was more than just a post-orgasmic high.

It was happiness. 

 

 

He found Cuddy sitting on the edge of the bed when he walked out of the bathroom. She gave him a sweet, sleepy smile and tilted her face up to his. He kissed her cheeks and chin, reddened by his stubble, then her forehead, and finally her nose. “That was fun,” he said. “We should do it again sometime.”

“Maybe after I’ve had some IV fluids.” She leaned back slightly to examine the dressing on his shoulder. “How is it now?”

Never one to miss an opportunity, he bent his head and tried to peer down her t-shirt. “Better,” he told her, as he stretched out the neck for a clearer view. “Much better.”

She swatted his hand away. “I’m talking about your wound, House, not my breasts. It’s not as though you didn’t just see them.”

“Some things you never get tired of looking at. Like great art. Or re-runs of The L Word.”

“Great art and The L Word. I’m flattered. Come to bed, House.”

“I think I had a dream once that began like this,” he said, as he switched off the light and crawled in beside her.

She shifted pillows and limbs until they were both comfortable. “Shh. No more talking. Sleep now.” 

“You’re so bossy.”

“Mmm. You love it,” she murmured.

He listened to her steady, even breathing, and felt the faint myoclonic spasms of her muscles as she fell asleep. She was warm beside him, holding him steady, in place. Just as she always had.

“I do love it,” he told her softly in the dark. “I love you.”

**Author's Note:**

>   
> [the wolfman ate my homework is a real t-shirt!](http://beta.threadless.com/product/3793/The_Wolfman_Ate_My_Homework/tab,guys/style,shirt)  
>  concrit is most welcome.


End file.
